Video: A Quick Guide To Southeastern Asian Food With Leah Cohen

Mention going out for Thai food to someone, and chances are that he or she will immediately think of pad thai. The same goes for Vietnamese dishes like pho and bánh mì. These items have become popular in the U.S. as they've attained a strong sense of familiarity and restaurants have altered flavors to increase their appeal to the American palate. But there's a vast array of foods from Southeast Asia that still remain mostly undiscovered here, and it's a downright shame because many of them are absolutely delicious and very worth sampling.

Leah Cohen opened Pig & Khao on New York City's Lower East Side back in 2012 in large part to expose the city's masses to these types of items. We recently asked her to talk about lesser-known homestyle Southeastern dishes, such as the Burmese-influenced Northern Thai egg noodle dish khao soi and the Filipino sisig, made from parts of a pig's head and liver.